Photo Monday – Playing with the Light

Every year, I try to get pictures of our Christmas tree and they’re never quite right. I think it’s in part due to the fact that it isn’t the most photogenic tree. The girls are the main decorators and they try to spread the ornaments out but they still end up in bunches. They also don’t know when to call it quits. Oh, and when we bought the lights, we bought 4 white strands but did not notice that we had 2 warm white ones and 2 cool white ones. We alternate them to make it look intentional… And the ornaments do not coordinate at all.

And yet. I love our tree. One of the ornaments (not pictured) is a skating owl that a classmate gave me for my 6th birthday. It still looks great. And it isn’t the only ornament I had as a kid. There’s a few of them. There are several from M’s grandmother’s stash. All the ones the girls made and the ones they’ve picked out (I let them get one new ornament of their choice every year). There are some princesses in there from their pink power years (also not pictured because they aren’t my personal favorites)…

And the glass balls M and I bought when we made our very first Christmas tree together. They look like crap now but we still use a handful every year. The girls don’t care.

And then, there are the ones we bought during our travels. The little pretzel man and the metal ones we bought in Munich. That was our first real trip together.

Most recently, the mosaic ball from Barcelona…

And as we decorate the tree, each ornament has a story. So when I look at our tree, it isn’t just a tree. And I can never do it justice. So this year, I played with what the light could do, purposely blurring everything or almost. On some, I used manual focus set at the shortest focal length and shallowest depth of field. I liked some of the results and V also picked out her favorites (she liked the candle and the fox).